


Holiday

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:47:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27390700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Winchester crashes the Klinger Thanksgiving - with great success.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Holiday

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to L_M_Biggs, who helped me shape this one!

Honoria’s voice scolded in his ear; what had he been thinking, going to a pharmaceutical conference right before Thanksgiving!? 

“You d-deserve y-your h-horrible restaurant f-fare for sticking me with the p-parents  _ alone _ ,” she intoned, hanging up. 

And he probably did deserve any number of punishments (she still hadn’t forgiven him for leaving her alone when he’d been  _ drafted _ !) … but he was in Pittsburgh - a mere three hours from Toledo. What was Charles thankful for this November? A best friend who would let him drop in anytime! 

But when he rang the bell, Maxwell didn’t appear. Thankfully, he had neighbors as talkative as he was and they told Charles where to find him. “You don’t look Lebanese,” one of them opined. 

“Ah, no. I served with Maxwell in Korea.” 

They liked that answer, were clearly proud of their little veteran. Charles confirmed that they should be. “The Sergeant is a remarkable person.” 

_ Hopefully _ , thought Charles,  _ remarkable enough to forgive my inconsiderate behavior.  _

But inconsiderate as he was about to be, Charles was still possessed of fine, old world manners. He was going to show sans invitation, yes, but not empty-handed. And while the front door opened on chaos - a riot of smells and sounds and colors - the flowers did make it into the soft, seamed hands of Klinger’s mother, and the cigars went to the men, and happy voices murmured over him. 

And there was Max - shining, mopping his face because the little domicile was overwarm with cooking and with bodies - and the look he gave him… it wasn’t all that different (and Charles didn’t even  _ try _ to censor the sweet thought) from the look a bridegroom might give his bride, seeing her start down the aisle. 

“Major!?”

His arms opened of their own accord and he felt the Klinger clan part around them as if some form of genetic sympathy existed within them (probably, it did). And Klinger stepped into the embrace (Charles  _ did not _ embrace people) as if he’d been made solely to do so. His head fit just under Charles’ chin. “What are you doing here!?” 

“My flight home was delayed. I didn’t want to spend the holiday alone.” He explained how he’d found him and Max translated for the eager, questioning, babbling relatives who were sizing up their tall, patrician interloper. 

“Missed you like hell, you know,” Klinger said softly, into his chest. He looked up with his magpie eyes to add, “Didn’t much think I’d ever see you again, either.” 

Then he exited the embrace, but stayed close, to introduce Charles as “his old friend from Korea.” Charles tried to keep the ensuing volley of introductions straight in his mind, shaking the hands of Klinger’s uncles (there really were a lot of them) and kissing the uplifted fingers of his girl cousins. Though he could understand little of what was said, Charles could read the welcome in their smiles, their admiring gestures that indicated his height (the Klinger clan was vertically challenged, though bountiful). Klinger beamed, his smile tinged with a “look what I got!” possessiveness. 

What Charles did not realize (but Klinger sensed) was that every member of the Klinger clan had heard  _ how  _ Klinger spoke about this Major Winchester of his, and the better part of the family was convinced that the two men had shared more than drinks or cigars in Korea. After all, wasn’t there something flickering between the two? A sweetly kinetic force that hinted, without ever becoming indecent, at how good they were to each other - and  _ with _ each other? It was there in the way that Charles pulled out Max’s chair, in the way they leaned toward each other: two bodies bookending a shared soul. 

Nor were such suppositions exactly set to rest when Charles told Uncle Amir (most of the uncles spoke English) that part of the reason for his trip was to get Max to return to Boston with him for treatment on his lungs… treatment for which the proud Major intended to pay. “Korea didn’t help his lungs any,” he explained and Amir patted his hand, thinking his nephew might be the luckiest man to ever zip himself into a dress if he could win this kind, wealthy, caring doctor with the lonely almost lilac eyes. 

The riot of dinner (Klinger explaining dishes to his Major, bodies moving in and out of the room for seconds) transitioned into the relative calm of visiting. Charles watched - looking with awe on an idea of family that was quite alien to him. Their affection was unending and unfeigned; they caught each other up or clasped hands or embraced over seemingly nothing at all. 

_ I have never experienced anything like this in my life,  _ Charles thought, feeling genuine wonder and a wish that it could somehow be his. In under three hours, he’d enjoyed more physical affection than his parents had shown him in three decades… These laughing, lovely Klingers - he wanted to bless them all. Instead, he took the golden cake he was nibbling on to the window and felt warmth and pain well up in equal measure.  _ You are so lucky, Maxwell. And how proper that is, being penny bright as you are. If I had known about  _ **_this,_ ** _ I would have tried to get sent to Toledo  _ **_too_ ** _!  _

Maxwell came up beside him as if summoned and leaned against him, hand at his waist. He never would have dared this in Korea, but they weren’t  _ in  _ Korea; Charles didn’t move out of the touch. “You okay, Major?” He worried his family might be far too much for the closed off creature. 

“Yes, Max. Your family is wonderful.” 

“They’re yours now, too, you know. They all decided.” 

Charles laughed but it was the saddest laugh Klinger had ever heard. “I do not believe it works quite like that.” 

“You want it official? I can do that. My mom will adopt you - don’t tempt her. Or steal. We do have that whole gypsy thing going on.” 

Charles looked into his eyes, tried to keep his tone light. “You would steal me, Max?” 

“We do like treasures.”

“I really am not that rich.” 

“Sure you are - in personality when you let it show. In height. In heart.” 

Too often the thoracic surgeon had believed his heart warped and wrong.  _ But  _ **_you_ ** _ are there now, beloved, and no part of me can be wicked or unlovely while playing house to you.  _

***

When full night fell, the clan began to disperse. 

“I was just gonna stay here tonight,” Klinger told his friend. “We get back together for breakfast, but if you’d rather go…?”

“I’ve no wish to disrupt your holiday further.”

“It’ll mean sharing a bed.”

“We’ve done as much before.”

Klinger fought off a blush. Surely he would have remembered? 

“The storm,” Charles reminded him. “The transport truck.” 

“Oh, right. I just… I know how you are about touch sometimes, Major.” 

Charles indicated the arm around his waist and raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you ask?” he teased. 

“Since I care about you.” 

Charles had no idea how to answer that. 

“So, bed sharing - yes or no?” 

He made an okay sign by his belt buckle and felt Klinger relax against him. 

Upstairs, the Major bumped and shuffled nervously into his pajamas. This detour had been unplanned… but Klinger had seen him in worse and rattier things (after a time, there had seemed little point in trying to keep anything nice in Korea). He told himself to be and to stay calm, but his composure quite vanished when he saw Klinger tucked under the comforter, shoulders naked except for golden straps… of silk. 

Trying to keep from imagining the rest of the ensemble, Charles asked, “Is this the room you grew up in?” 

“Nah. After pop died, Ma got the bigger place just for holidays and stuff. She’s always redoing the rooms.”

Charles thought of Klinger decorating the clerk’s office and smiled. 

“Growing up, my slumber parties were always with girls. My cousins would sneak me in and let me pretend. What about you?”

Charles shook his head; Klinger had always trusted him with all the facets of his personality. “I had nothing of the sort... unless you count boarding school. Though the nocturnal ‘games’ that happened there tended to be predatory.”

Klinger shot him a sympathetic look. “I wish I had grown up with you. We woulda had fun together, staying up all night, talking…” 

Charles imagined it; their age difference made it impossible, but it was a sweet notion just the same. “We would have gotten into trouble, I imagine.” 

“I coulda got us back out - your charm, my good looks, we’re invincible, Major. We made it outta Korea, right?” 

Charles had kept a respectable distance between them up to this point, but now he scooted closer, pulled Klinger snug against him. 

“So, what does one discuss at a slumber party?”

Klinger flashed him a pretty look. “Secrets I think. What happened to your touch me not thing?” 

“That is a bit of a secret, itself.” He waited a beat. “You see, I never meant it to apply to you.” 

Klinger made a small, desperate sound. Then he kissed the man he loved. 

“Max! I cannot seduce you in your mother’s house!”

Klinger pulled Charles back in for a second kiss and persuaded him to open his mouth this time. “First off, Major, I am 100% seducing you. Second, there’s five other couples staying here. You saw how many little cousins I have. I promise you, we’re not the only ones having sex. C’mon - let me make this the best slumber party ever. You deserve it.” 

“Max… I find I cannot refuse.” 

“Good! But stop me if you need to, okay? I don’t want to push you.” 

“I wanted you to be mine the day I arrived at the 4077th.” 

“Me too. I thought you’d either be my ticket out or the cause of a lot of orgasms.”

“So vulgar, darling?”

“You can use it, Major baby. All that stiff upper lip napkin ring stuff hasn’t made you feel good so far, has it?” 

Charles had not shown Klinger every skeleton in his closet, but he knew how emotionally intuitive the man was, knew that Klinger suspected some of the terrible things his family had done in the name of straightening this wild growth on the family tree, the brazen dandelion blooming amongst the stately ivy. “No.”

“But you were pretty happy tonight, huh? Paper plates and all?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You just need more regular people stuff."

“Thank you for allowing me to join you.”

“You had to know I would.”

Charles shook his head. “I, ah, hoped.” 

Klinger kissed him again, made him feel his warmth, sweetness, excitement, and gratitude. “That was brave, Charles.” 

“Another secret then, pretty eyes.” They both knew Klinger was being rewarded for saying his name. “There was no reason for me to go to that conference. I didn’t even attend a panel. I just hoped the weather would turn and the wings would ice and I would have to come find you. I missed you Max, far more than I ever missed Boston.”

“So stop.”

“Stop what?” 

“Stop missing me.” 

“How?”

“Come on, Major. You came all the way here. You socialized with people you woulda looked down on once.” He tipped Charles’ chin up when he tried to look down, ashamed of his past behavior. “You’re not the same you that showed up in Korea. I loved you then, you know, right from the start, even though  _ everybody  _ tried to talk me out of it. But I loved you more tonight with flowers in your hand and your cheeks bright from the cold and your arms open for me.”

Charles opened them again and Max didn’t hesitate. 

“This is what you wear to sleep alone?”

“I like to feel pretty. Want to know something, Major?” 

“Yes, my darling.” 

“You’ve said that in your head a lot, huh?” He could hear it in the easy way it left his tongue. 

“Many, many times.”

“Wish I coulda heard it before. But here’s what I was gonna say: if you hadn’t showed, I still woulda thought of you tonight in this bed.” He held his eyes to try to get him to understand. “I would have pretended, you know?” 

“Show me?” He looked scared  _ before  _ he said it… terrified after. 

“Of course I will. Charles, you should’ve figured this out by now, but just in case you didn’t: there’s probably nothing I  _ wouldn’t  _ do if you asked me.” 

This was very relevant information that Charles filed away under  I will propose to this pretty thing by Christmas.

For now, he helped Max get comfortable, legs twined around his waist. Then he surprised the former Corporal by taking his fingers into his mouth and sucking on them, stroking them with a worshipful tongue. 

“You’re giving me ideas, Major baby.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, something Charles had never heard him do. “I bet you give the best head.” 

Charles’ sexual history was composed of brief, shameful interactions that had left him preferring nothing to the pain that accompanied every encounter he’d dared but Max sounded so  _ certain _ , so eager to know, so hungry to feel his mouth… “Max…” He kissed him deep, hard, “Max I scarcely believe that I can ever be good enough for you, but shall we find out?” 

“You’re asking if I  _ want _ you to go down on me? The section eight stuff was  _ a lark _ , baby.”

They both burst out laughing- but Max’s cut out when Charles pushed the nightgown up over his waist and mouthed his through his panties. 

“Awww, that’s not fair, Major,” he whined, lifting his hips in an attempt to get at more of the warmth. 

“Fair? I used to watch you hanging such ensembles out to dry and wonder who saw you in them. I was so jealous, Maxwell, especially when Pierce would talk about trying… to ah,”

“Play with that lace the way you’re doing? Don’t worry, baby. I never let him. And even if he coulda snuck a touch or two, he wouldn’t have been able to barely touch me and have me a mess the way you do!” 

Charles had little experience but he knew an invitation when he heard one. He moved the pretty netting aside and began to suck, seeking an angle that would give the most depth. Klinger was slick with the evidence of his desire and he held back  _ nothing _ . He guided Charles to the best spots, praised him, thrust for him, aching. 

Then he stopped. “Wait. Baby, wait.” 

“Too much? Did I hurt you?”

“Nope. I just don’t want to finish yet. I want you inside me. Then I’ll come.” 

Charles whimpered. 

“Well hurry up, handsome. You undress, I’ll get ready.”

“I propose a swap. Your gift is buttons and zippers - mine is medicine.”

“You’re worried about hurting me.”

“Of course I am.” 

“I’m not that fragile,” Klinger promised. 

“You are that  _ precious _ .” 

“Sweet talker. Think you can keep that up when you’re on your knees?” 

“You have had me on my knees many times,” Charles teased as a way of saying yes. 

Klinger raided his overnight bag and handed over the oil (he hadn’t been kidding about his plans). Charles’ fingers were deft and cool and certain - and he kept things shallow and slow until Klinger made a sound that was pure frustration 

“Problem, pet?”

“Just thinking,” Max lifted himself up on one elbow as if they were just back in the Swamp, carping at each other in play and fully clothed, “You traded me so you could watch me suffer, didn’t you? Not nice, sir.”

Charles laughed with his eyes. “You knew my reputation before you accepted.” 

“Yeah but it’s a  _ holiday _ . You gave candy to orphans - give an orgasm to the needy.”

“You do… need me? Max?”

Max knew he wasn’t talking about sex. “Practically to breathe.”

Charles gathered him up. “Me too. I did not realize it until you were not there. I wanted an end to the war. To the pain, the suffering, the dirt, the blood. I wanted to come home.”

Klinger nodded his understanding; he’d wanted that, too, right down to the marrow-bright beds of his bones. Korea had taught him to put other people’s desires first, to pitch in when the sight of so much blood made him sick… but he’d never stopped wanting to go home (or wanting Charles). 

“But when I did…” the Major went on, “I did not mean to trade never seeing your face again.” 

“I wouldn’t have let that happen.” 

Charles' hands ran up and down his sides, delighting in the silk, the slender frame beneath it. “I have always feared that I would not - and never could- be enough for you, but I have never stopped wanting you.” 

“You were enough the minute you stepped on the base, Charles.” 

The unexpected use of his first name - again - made Charles’ abdomen clench. “What did you think of me then?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking the question, though he feared the answer. 

“Told you already, Major baby. That you were either going to be my ticket home or the cause of a lot of sleepless nights.” He reached out. “Can I?” Charles gave him his hand, let Klinger tangle their fingers. “The thing is, beautiful, I didn’t mind losing the sleep in the end. Thinking about you… that was probably what got me through. Got me home. You kept me safe. So you don’t ever get to tell me you’re not enough, okay?” 

“I had forgotten how dangerously winning your tongue is, Max.” 

“You’re still terrible at taking compliments.” 

“You will teach me, I am certain.” 

Then he lifted the smaller man into his lap, joined them.

And they were still, looking into each other's eyes in shock. 

“I did not know anything could feel like this,” Charles whispered against his lips. 

“I knew you would. I knew you’d be  _ perfect _ .”

And he stayed perfect, thrusting sweet and slow as Max’s hands clutched at his shoulders. 

Charles kissed his throat. “We will do this again you know.” 

“I was kinda hoping,” Klinger’s voice was mostly a moan. 

“So, why are you holding back?” 

“ _ You feel too good _ .” 

“Perhaps I just need to try harder. I could, ah, order you, Corporal.”

Klinger lifted his head and shook it emphatically. “Don’t you dare, sir!” 

_ Well that answered  _ **_that_ ** _ question… a game for another time.  _ “Perhaps not.” He grabbed his hips, held him flush against him. “But I do so want to please you, darling. You’re far too beautiful to be left wanting. Please, Max? Please be my sweet girl and let me make you mine?” Charles had used such language on him before just to make him blush - but he hadn’t been  _ inside _ him at the time. 

Klinger lost it.

The aftershocks rocked him - long, sweet, tectonic shifts - and he buried his face in Charles’ shoulder to moan his way through them. Charles kissed his hair as he missed the sight of his eyes. When he looked back up, Max was panting. “Say one word about winning,” he warned, “Charles, and I’ll deck you.” 

“Do not make me laugh, belove, please. I am  _ aching _ for you.” He was breathing so fast his abdomen fluttered.

“I got you Major baby - you just breathe.” 

Klinger happily watched him unravel. “Don’t close your eyes, Charles. I’ve wanted you for three years - I’ve earned seeing your eyes when you come.” 

Charles groaned but obeyed. And as the peak went on and on, Charles dragged him down against his chest.

“Thank you, Max.” 

“You can’t thank me for an orgasm!” 

“I am thanking you for existing.” 

“And the orgasm.”

“Yes, a bit.” 

“You said there’d be more,” Max teased. 

“I will likely thank you for those, too. I  _ am _ a gentleman.” 

“Yeah, a chivalrous one, too, if you’re taking me to Boston.” 

“How did you…?” 

“My uncle told me. He thinks we make a very handsome couple.” He preened a little;  _ he  _ thought they made a handsome couple, too. 

“It’s not just chivalry. You were right when you said I am not who I was. I returned and found I could not fit. But with you… you feel like home.”

They snuggled together then. As he drifted off, Klinger felt himself drawn closer. “I lost you once,” Charles said into his hair. 

“It’s a small bed. You’re not gonna lose me. I won’t let you.” 

***

The next morning, Charles was once more happily drawn into boisterous Klinger-dom. He even got brave enough to try out the little bit of Arabic Klinger had taught him. 

The table went silent - then everyone was speaking at once. Charles assumed this chatter was surprise. In actuality, the words Klinger had taught him for friend might  _ actually  _ have translated into “my beloved” and “my bride.” 

Max’s mom was now very much encouraging her son to accept. “Quick! Marry him before he changes his mind!” 

Klinger blushed, groaned. “Ma, he doesn’t know what he’s saying!” he protested in Arabic.  


His cousins howled. “You taught him to say it - you must want him to mean it, Maxie-doll!” 

He did. He really did. 

His mother continued to insist.

“I’m not that bad of a catch, ma!” 

She gestured at his outfit. “No one else is asking, Maxwell.” 

“What is happening?” Charles asked. 

_ I am being lovingly roasted by a family that very much wants us to get married  _ **_today_ ** _ , Major.  _ “They want me to go to Boston with you. They think you’re very sweet to want to fix me up.” 

Charles smiled. “Of course I do. You are sure you won’t be needed here?”

Klinger’s mom understood a little English. She came over and joined their hands, patted the twined fingers. “Take, take,” she told Charles. “We send clothes.” 

Klinger buried his head in his hands. 

***

**December 21 - 10:53 AM**

Maxwell Klinger carried an ornate footstool into the parlor where his boyfriend was fretting. Stepping out of his shoes, he stood atop the patterned fabric to place his hands on rigid shoulders and say, “Stop.” 

Charles barely registered the odd act; his mind was whirring with last-minute preparations and going back over a mental list, checking on anything that might have been overlooked.

Klinger sighed. Usually his slightest touches were enough to get through to the man he loved; touch-starved for too long, Charles craved the small gestures that now peppered his days and nights: Maxwell stroking the back of his neck as they watched television, a kiss on his jaw to welcome his return from work, a hand resting on his leg as he drove. Klinger broke his distraction with a kiss, using his tongue in ways that Charles had taught him over the past month. 

“Mmm, darling… I am sorry. What were you saying?”

Klinger grinned. “Knew you weren’t listening.”

“Ah, no,” he dropped his eyes, abashed. He was about to say he just wanted everything to be perfect when he saw the footstool. “Did you carry that in here, my clever girl?” 

“Uh huh.”

“I rather like us being of a height - at least for kissing.” 

“Then let’s go lay down where you can reach me fine.”

“They will be here in mere  _ hours _ , Max!” 

“So gimme fifteen  _ minutes _ , Charles.” 

The Major grinned; it wasn’t even a brag. 

“I’m wearing real pretty stuff for you,” Max bargained. “Christmas colors. Lots of ribbons you can get me stuck in.”

“Fifteen minutes?”

“Thirty if you wanna hear me scream your name.” 

Happily defeated, Charles took his hand. 

***

By 11:27, they were dressed again and Charles was calm enough (or bliss-high enough, anyway) to allow Max to soothe him into not fretting. 

“They already love you, baby. You don’t have to impress ‘em.” 

“I… Max, this is not an easy thing for me to admit, though I have known it about myself for some time.”

The Corporal took his hands. “One word at a time,” he encouraged. “You’re talking to somebody who loves you,” he reminded the man whose shoulders were now tight with warding off old feelings. 

“I… I always believed that I could not be loved for myself. That any affection I received, I had to earn it by being the best. The best son. The best in the class. Even now, if I upset you, my instinct is to cook something or buy something or do something to show my worth. I am a good surgeon because being such wins me praise…” 

Klinger enveloped him in a hug; this was incredibly brave and vulnerable for his Charles - the man deserved the reward of being wrapped tight — and told better. “Baby, you know I try hard not to say anything against your family, but if they taught you that, I won’t ever forgive ‘em. Love’s not a transaction. I’m your safety, baby. You get to be your worst with me when you need to - I’m gonna be here for hurt and angry and afraid. And you know what? It might not be fun in the moment, but I won’t love you less. In fact, I’ll probably love you more and want to fight whatever’s got you hurting. You don’t gotta earn me or my family. Just let us in and let us love you - ‘cause we’re gonna, because you’re the best for us. That’s all the best you gotta be. And you’re a good surgeon because you’re brilliant and have an amazing heart - so no more of that, huh?” 

Charles nodded. “I… I believe you, darling. I have to, with those eyes of yours. But it is what I know. It will not… I fear I will not change overnight.” 

Klinger was so proud of him then. “Oh, I know. One day at a time, Major baby.” He patted his leg. “Today, just try to be happy, okay?” 

“Darling, with you in that goldenrod dress at my side, I shall be ecstatic.”

At 3:00, the doorbell rang and Max was happily, laughingly swept up by an in-rushing tide of relatives that hugged, petted, lifted, and loved him as they came inside. Charles expected this tide to pass him by - he’d met them but once - but soon his cheeks were bright with kisses and babies were pressed on him to admire as if he were a priest doling out blessings on their wee heads or a politician with a pocket full of lollipops. Klinger played proud hostess, getting everyone’s bags into the right rooms, pointing out restrooms where makeup could be repaired and wrinkled clothing soothed - pressing drinks on those whose tempers were travel-worn. 

The Klinger cousins - beautiful girls with flowers in their hair - served the little ones from buffet tables (chocolate oranges were a big hit), kissing Charles - again - for the consideration he’d shown with the choice of dishes. They had been listening as he and Klinger took direction from Klinger’s mom as to how to make her best dishes. The idea of that aristocratic frame in an apron had set them sighing with envy for Max and hoping there’d be mistletoe among the Klinger/Winchester decorations so that they could steal a kiss. 

As Klinger toured them around, Charles hung back, happy to see him happy, amazed at the clan’s easy acceptance. Klinger’s mom stayed behind, too. When he realized he wasn’t alone, Charles brightened. “Merry Christmas, Farida.” 

She came to stand before him with her bird-bright eyes, her face seamed from smiling. She had been working on her English for this moment. “Max my only son,” she began, laying her hand over her heart to communicate the place she kept him, whether under her eyes or not. 

Charles nodded at the love in her eyes without realizing that its twin softly lit his face. 

She reached out and took his hand, placed it over her heart, held fast. A tear slipped over her cheek. “Now my son is Charles, too.” She held up two fingers. “Two boys for mama Farida.” And then, small as she was, she embraced her new son, stroking the curls behind his ears. In that moment, Charles knew just exactly who Klinger had inherited his emotional intuition from; he needed this gift and Farida knew it. When she drew back, she nodded, satisfied at having patched up a very old wound. 

“Farida…”

“You call me mama now, yes?”

“Mom,” was the best he could manage, and it was teary. “There are… that was the best gift I shall receive this season.” He wiped his eyes. “Save one, I hope.” 

She rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “No needs hope. But special, that you bring us. My good son, is Charles.” 

Arm in arm, they went to find the rest of the family - Charles unaware that his face was soft with happy awe. 

***

The next three days yielded many happy memories. The Klinger clan was introduced to a feast of calabash seafood. The cousins taught Honoria to dance. Charles learned there were several musicians among the uncles and got quite lost in the wild tunes they played one night before the fire. Honoria modeled clothes Max had made for her and Charles was celebrated for the tiny treats he had seen to as a host. Each time this happened, he looked to Max as if to say, “See? My fretting was worthwhile!” and received an indulgent smile in turn. 

On Christmas morning they ate orange sweet rolls and drank tea in front of the fire as gifts were exchanged. Some were handmade and some were silly. Some brought happy tears to bright eyes. When the floor was a sea of broken bows and silvery wrapping, Charles left to retrieve a last surprise. 

Max looked at him expectantly as the box was placed in his lap. “We said no gifts, Major baby.” Hosting his family had been gift enough, with Charles paying their train fair. 

“I asked your mom and she said there was one thing you always wanted growing up, but couldn’t have because you were always renting.” 

Klinger chucked the lid aside. “Babies!” 

They loved him at first sight, crying and bumping his hands. They were lifted out and passed around, those Christmas kittens, and Klinger beamed. “I love them, Charles.” 

“Ah, well, they do come with something of an, ah, an obligation, my dear.” 

Klinger tilted his head. 

“Traditionally, kittens are a gift for a bride, you know.” He knelt then and a rippled sigh ran through the group as they watched Max realize why Christmas had to be in Boston this year. Some of the girl cousins were already crying (mostly from happiness but also with some regret at seeing Charles very much taken off the market). “Maxwell al-Qurhah Klinger, will you be forever mine?” 

“It isn’t legal, Major baby,” Max whispered, winning a laugh from his loving audience. 

“I shall find a way to make it so.” 

Max looked up, found Honoria’s eyes. “It’s okay, Nori? With you?” It was half her house. 

She laughed brightly and removed flowers from a vase to chuck them at him. “Yes, new brother-mine. It is b-beyond okay.” 

Charles grabbed his hand and pressed his face into it to hide his laughter before sliding home a ring. “Say yes, Maxwell.”

“Yes, Charles.” Cheers drowned out whatever else he might have said and the Major lifted him up as a crush of congratulating forms embraced them. 

Later that night, wrapped in loving arms with his new ring shining like a star that had gotten happily lost, Max chuckled at his would-be husband. “That was some trick, Major.” His new babies were playing by their feet, pouncing on shadows and moonbeams. 

“What is that, my love?”

“Bringing everybody here. They call me a schemer!” 

“I knew the moment would mean more to you if they were here.”

“You asked ma for my hand and everything? For real? Like an old-time story?” Farida had shared this as they celebrated. 

“In Arabic. I am certain I committed linguistic murder along the way, but I had practice saying ‘my bride,’ speaking of schemes - so that part was coherent.” 

Max refused to feel shame. “I never thought it’d be real. Figured I could enjoy listening to you without it hurting anyone.” 

“Indeed. You frightened me with that pause, you know. I cannot do without you again, Maxwell.”

“You won’t have to, Charles. Not ever again.” 

Outside, church bells chimed for midnight. The looked at each other, thinking of wedding bells, and smiled.

The End! 

  
  
  



End file.
